India’s goods trade numbers for February and March 2023 have been revised by over $10 billion from initial estimates, and the overall export-import figures for last year have been scaled down by around $3 billion dollars each, with experts flagging petroleum shipments as the main driver for the extraordinarily high revisions of recent export data.
While exports were earlier reckoned to have grown 6% in 2022-23 to hit $447.46 billion, that number has now been pared to $444.4 billion, reflecting a 5.3% rise from 2021-22. The import bill for last year has also been scaled down from $714.24 billion to $711.85 billion, indicating a growth of 16.1%. The trade deficit for the year has risen 40.8% to $267.45 bn, slightly higher than the 40% estimated earlier.
For February, goods exports have been revised higher by almost $3.1 billion from the initial estimate of $33.9 billion to about $37 billion. The month’s import bill was raised by over $1.93 billion, the second-highest upward revision for a month, after a $3.08 billion uptick from December’s initial estimate.
